I have had several issues before me these last six months; one is litigious –and no words on that. I am surrounded by issues, like us all, that have beset me, causing the wheels of my mind to work. I am trying, as I have in the past, not only to keep focused on what is or is not essential to living, but to rationally see my way out several externally imposed mazes. I am in a labyrinth not of my own making, at least not in most instances. I have no Ariadne to lead me out. I have only me. And what else is new? Jane tells me that she admires or appreciates or is cognizant that I continually work on my mental health — should I work on yours? I talk to myself during the day, sometimes ranting or muttering out loud while driving the car. I highly recommend it, for it discharges tension but it also gives word to feelings and emotions. If writers can read their dialogue out loud to test for verisimilitude, I can surely engage myself verbally to deal with the hardcore issues of everyday living. I think in terms of choices, always choices, as I used to advise my clients when I practiced. I sometimes view myself as a client, give it a diagnosis, and proceed to deal with it somewhat realistically, somewhat therapeutically so as to effect not an answer, but a better question to ask so as to get myself out the ditch as the rear tire is spinning against slush.
In a metaphysicial sense, to wit, I pose questions about my mortality — I am 68 — knowing full well I can conk out at any time, but I rally to the sensibility that today and this moment is all I have and I try to do meaningful things — and that is a hard thing to decide to do as life is filled with exigencies and economic tethers and messy relationships, all wrapped up in a burrito of unclear options, fuzzy thinking, fantasies and simply undoable thoughts. In this goulash I struggle to write, to write this blog for me — not you, dear reader, not really, not ever. I struggle to decide if a trip miles away to have a New York bagel and read the New York Times is worth it. It often is if I can escape from Green Valley, this retirement morgue. Should I buy my girl a pair of expensive cashmere lined leather gloves at Coach? You bet I say yes even if I am up to my neck in bills, many not of my making. I choose to live now, in the moment. I am frugal, but not cheap; I am generous with money, for it is a frivolous concern grounded in nettles and burrs. I seek pleasure in a good olive, in looking at art, and writing has given me pleasure, and reviews good and bad, have helped clarify me to me as a writer — scorned, detested, praiseworthy, awarded prizes, the received esteem from colleagues. You put yourself out on the line when you publish. It takes guts.
I have reached a conclusion about myself. If I died today, I believe I have done my life’s task. I published a few books and have succeeded with some success so that I appreciate myself as a writer. I have a close relationship with my son but not with my daughter. This saddens me, but if I died I know I have reached out to her through the years. I have been unkind to people as I look back now, but I was young –no exuse, callow — no excuse, and did not know better. However, in recents years I have not set out purposefully to do harm, for it is not in my character to do so. If i were to die today, I believe I have a good handle on who I am. I have struggled for years with that and continue to do so. Without the analytical jargon, I am a wounded soul, naive, impulsive, spontaneous as well, generous to a fault, unrealistic at moments, kind, feeling, impassioned, intellectual and deeply feeling, compassionate and angry at the world’s injustices; I do not hate but I can sneer and hold others with contempt. I have a grand sense of humor; i am a secular Jew, not a religious one, proud of the Jewish contribution to the world; I saturate in memory, like another Jew, Proust; I stand up for myself; I have a good measure of integrity; grandiose at moments; depressive, ornery, but like madras, I bleed in many different colors. My life has been a holocaust ( small “h”) with great moments of horror in it — the death of my wife Rochelle in an automobile accident and the suicide of my daughter, Caryn, in 1998. I have had days and despair that to me were unworldy. Yet I persist. And if I died today I have sailed my skiff to the territory ahead, as Twain called it, alone, hand on the rudder, with a measly tattered sail and without compass, battered and beatened about. To arrive is not in the cards. To struggle, I have learned, is all there is and in that is meaning. So I am a Jewish Sysyphus.
What does one do with the days in hand, and what does one do with the days and hopefully the years yet to come? I have some answers, but I am working on better questions to get at that. Even today in “retirement,” whatever that gargoyle is, I am trying to figure out or imagine what to do with my self — do I write which I am doing now? Do I plan for a future trip? Do I think of seeing my son in Chicago? Do I think about yesterday’s letter to my daughter asking if she might consider reconciling with me? It comes down to how each one of us manages time; it is a critical “administrative” skill. How does one go about sucking the juice from the lemon? How does one take strengths and personal attributes and convert them into an engine of discovery, exploration and deeds? How does one take the very fiber of the day and granulate it? How does one metabolize existence into whatever mist it becomes? And so the questions compound like interest.
Well, I am at an end. The psychological rant, the eruption, has eased. I want to thank myself for being such a meaningful annoyance. I think we all should creat an imaginary pest that looks like us and that we can keep on a leash.
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